


Lonely

by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)



Series: Sterek A-Z Challenge [12]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Lonely Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Pining Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-20 19:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10669656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wasterella/pseuds/isthatbloodonhisshirt
Summary: He let Derek know about the pack, who was dating who, what was going on, if any drastic changes had occurred.Texting Derek made him feel less alone. It made him feel like Derek was just away for a brief moment on pack duty, and he’d be back any day now—probably falling through his window mortally wounded and bleeding all over his floor. Stiles was positive that one patch of hardwood was just permanently ruined, by this point.But, to date, no Derek. And so, Stiles texted.





	Lonely

**Author's Note:**

> Teen Wolf (c) Jeff Davis

It hadn’t been that long, but it felt like an eternity. Things had changed, there was no denying that, but he hadn’t expected it to hit him this hard.

He’d always known the pack would eventually split, but he’d always assumed it would be years from now, when everyone was finished college and out trying to make their mark in the world. He figured they’d all trickle out slowly one by one in eight to ten years.

So for Derek to have up and left was throwing him off. It wasn’t that he hadn’t said anything, he’d called a pack meeting to say he was going off with Braeden to hunt down Kate, but he hadn’t ever said he was coming back.

Derek was just… gone. And Stiles didn’t know how to handle that.

Every time he heard a noise out on his roof, he always expected to roll over and find Derek tumbling in through his window, badly wounded and needing assistance. Or just lurking in a corner, he did that a lot, too.

It was never him.

Derek was off wherever he was out in the world and it was just Stiles alone in his room. It felt… lonely.

He knew it was ridiculous to feel that way, he still had the rest of the pack, but it was _different_  without Derek. He and Derek were kind of a unit when bad things happened. Scott and Kira were always together, Lydia and Malia had been bonding a lot over their mutual dislike of one another—who knew?—and Liam was always with his human buddies.

Now that Derek was gone, he felt excluded. He knew he wasn’t, he was still pack, and he still ran headfirst into danger with his bat alongside everyone else, but he wasn’t _whole_. He felt Derek’s absence like a heavy weight on his chest.

He missed him. A lot. It was weird when he acknowledged that because three years ago, when Derek was always all growly and in his face and slamming him into things in a non-sexy way, he never would’ve imagined there would come a day where he would miss Derek.

Well, he did. Everything felt wrong without him. He’d been with them since the beginning. The second Scott had become a Werewolf, Derek had been there. Throughout their entire supernatural experience, he was there.

The first bite, the Kanima, the Alpha pack, the Darach, the Nogitsune, Beserkers, the Benefactor…

So many things had happened to them since Scott’s bite, and Derek had been there for all of them. Stiles didn’t even know how to handle not having him around, which was probably why the past two months without him had felt like two years.

He still texted Derek incessantly. He never got replies, so he didn’t know if Derek had lost his phone or if the number had been re-assigned or Derek was just ignoring him, but it helped sometimes.

The texts were never anything life threatening. He would never do that to Derek, he knew that it would stress him out—in his own Derek way—if he found out the pack needed him and he wasn’t there. So Stiles just texted him stupid, mundane day-to-day things.

He mostly complained about school and Scott. Scott’s relationship with Kira was positively nauseating, which was saying a lot considering he’d been around during the Scott/Allison relationship. But he liked texting Derek. He pretended that the Werewolf was on the other end, reading all of his texts and enjoying being kept up to date on the pack.

Besides, Stiles worried that if he stopped texting him, it would be like acknowledging Derek didn’t need to know what was going on because he wasn’t coming back. Stiles couldn’t handle that. No matter what, Derek had to come back.

So, he texted him. Every day, he texted him. He complained about homework. He complained about Scott. He complained about his dad eating things he shouldn’t. He talked about the courses he was taking, the universities he was considering, the stress of everyday life—barring the supernatural, of course.

He let Derek know about the pack, who was dating who, what was going on, if any drastic changes had occurred.

Texting Derek made him feel less alone. It made him feel like Derek was just away for a brief moment on pack duty, and he’d be back any day now—probably falling through his window mortally wounded and bleeding all over his floor. Stiles was positive that one patch of hardwood was just permanently ruined, by this point.

But, to date, no Derek. And so, Stiles texted.

Tonight was particularly bad for him. They’d just defeated a new big bad—a Nephilim, who knew they could be evil?—and Stiles had gotten pretty banged up. This was normal, and wouldn’t have been a problem under normal circumstances, except for the fact that he was already sporting a set of cracked ribs from their encounter with a Clurichaun last week and the additional aggravation had actually levelled up his ribs from cracked to broken.

After two nights in the hospital, and a furious sheriff who’d had to come home early from a work thing because his son had gotten hurt _again_ , Stiles was finally home. In pain, depressed, lonely, and still smarting from his father’s thorough scolding.

He couldn’t text Derek about his injuries, because that meant talking about the supernatural side of his life, and he didn’t want to make him feel guilty for not being there. Then again, he didn’t know that Derek would feel guilty, but he liked to think he would.

So his texts that evening were mostly him whining about his dad being mad at him, and his bed being uncomfortable. He didn’t have to say _why_  his dad was mad at him, or the fact that he was injured being the _reason_  his bed was uncomfortable.

Once he was finished with his daily texting experience, he paused, staring at the messages. He scrolled up, looking at the long history of texts from him and no replies. He hit a point where he couldn’t go back any further, and still everything was from him.

Sighing, he dropped his phone on his chest and immediately winced, shifting and resting one hand against his ribs gingerly before picking his phone back up. Even when Derek wasn’t there, he was still physically injuring him. Figures.

He contemplated texting Scott, but knew he was in trouble with his mom—and Stiles’ dad—for what had happened the other day. Besides, he’d probably snuck out to go see Kira, so it’d be a waste of time. Anyone he tried to text would just ignore him if it wasn’t life or death, and he didn’t cry wolf on that. He didn’t want to _actually_  be in a life or death situation and have no one show up.

So, instead, he just spent a few hours reading through all the text messages he’d been sending Derek, scrolling down all the way until the last message he’d just sent that evening. It was well past midnight by then, and he had school in the morning—his dad said if he was well enough for supernatural shenanigans, he was well enough for school—so he knew he should sleep.

He stared at the last message he’d sent Derek, the ache in his chest spreading, and he decided to voice what he’d been feeling for the past two months.

Well, voice by text, anyway.

 **[User]**  
Hey Derek…  
**[User]**  
Considering your grumpy ass face  
**[User]**  
It’s weird but…  
**[User]**  
I miss you.  
**[User]**  
I hope you come home soon.

Tossing the phone onto his nightstand, he winced while sitting up, touching his ribs and carefully getting to his feet. He’d just started breathing exercises at the edge of his bed, trying to psych himself up to head for the bathroom when his phone trilled.

Confused, he turned to look at it, wondering who was texting him so late at night. Probably Scott. He hoped it wasn’t an emergency, Stiles could barely make it to the bathroom without being in pain, he doubted he’d be any good in a fight.

Turning, he winced while bending to grab his phone and almost dropped it at the name he saw on his home screen, hastily unlocking it and opening his last message to Derek.

 **[Derek]**  
i will. i miss u 2 stiles

For the first time since Derek’s departure, Stiles felt a bit of the ache in his chest disappear, and a smile slowly formed on his lips.

 **[User]**  
Damn straight!  
**[User]**  
Come back soon big guy!

Smiling to himself, he set his phone down and headed for the bathroom. He knew he wouldn’t get another response from Derek, but it felt amazing to know he really _was_  there and he was actually _reading_  Stiles’ texts.

And having him respond to admit he missed him too made Stiles feel just a little less lonely than he had before the message had come in. That was always a win in his book.

Derek Hale missed him.

Shit, to actually make a confession like that, he was probably dying.

Stiles grinned and shut the bathroom door.

**END.**


End file.
